I woke up shortly before dawn, gathered up my diving gear, and headed for the dive shop for the latest weather update. Unfortunately the current forecast was no better than it had been the previous day. A large storm was heading into the area, and all boats were required to be docked by noon. I hurried down to the docks, glancing up at the clear blue sky as I went. It seemed like such a nice day. It was hard to imagine that was all going to change in a few hours.
There were several smiling Tongan natives on the docks when I arrived, working to ready the recreational equipment for the day's tourist use. Laughlin had already loaded his gear onto a sleek, expensive-looking cabin cruiser. I brought him up to speed about the storm while I was stowing my gear, and learned that he hadn't bothered to check the weather forecasts himself. Figures. Once again, that image of wealthy idiots being rescued by the Coast Guard appeared in my head. Laughlin did appear to know his way around the boat, however, so at least we wouldn't wind up running aground on some reef before we reached the island...or so I hoped.
We both agreed it would be wise to meander around a bit before going on to the island, so we set course for the reef I'd claimed we'd be diving on. The boat handled superbly with Laughlin at the controls, and we arrived at the reef by 8:00 a.m. The sun was shining strongly in the east and the water was clear to a startling depth. Beautiful fish swam by in a riot of color on the reef. There was, as yet, no sign of the predicted storm. I suggested doing a short dive at the reef before moving on, both to verify that our equipment was working properly, and to led credence to my story in case anyone was watching us. I also suggested that, once we moved on to our final destination, we anchor out of sight of the island, if possible, and swim underwater to the cave. No sense alerting whoever was on the island if we could help it. Laughlin agreed with both of these ideas, and we quickly geared up for a swim. I couldn't help noticing in the process that Laughlin didn't look bad in a bathing suit. He was muscular in an athletic sort of way, and had no trouble shouldering the huge weight of his scuba gear without hunching over. I'd thought he was exaggerating when he talked of going into tombs and looking for artifacts, but maybe he had done some actual exploring, rather than dabble in the hobby.
Once we were in the water, we began to swim along the reef, enjoying the abundant and exotic reef life. About ten minutes passed in this manner, and I was starting to regret that this wasn't how we actually planned to spend the day, when suddenly air bubbles began rapidly streaming away from Laughlin, and he stopped moving. Alarmed, I began to swim towards him to help. That's when my own oxygen regulator abruptly failed, filling my lungs with a painful burst of pressurized air.
Recognizing what had happened, I quickly hit the shutoff on my tank in an effort to stop the rest of my air from draining away, then swam over to Laughlin and did the same for him. Much to my relief, he appeared to be stunned, but alive. Neither of us were going to be getting any more oxygen from our tanks, however, which meant we needed to ascend immediately. Thankfully, we were only about 40 feet down, so I didn't have to worry about us getting the bends. I swam rapidly towards the surface with Laughlin, scanning the area as I went to see if anyone appeared to be waiting up there for us, or approaching us underwater. The area seemed clear...for now.
Laughlin recovered during the ascent, and was swimming independently by the time we finally breached the surface, gasping for air. The boat floated at anchor a few hundred yards away, and no immediate enemy had appeared above or below the water. Laughlin was irritably muttering some odd syllables in a language I didn't recognize. I wondered if he was swearing. God knew I felt like it. That had been close. If that had happened while we were deep in that cave, or the force of the oxygen release had been any greater, we could easily have died.
Still scanning for any attackers, I swam to the boat, my now-useless oxygen tank weighing at me. "That can't be a coincidence," I noted to Laughlin as we climbed back into the boat and stripped out of our gear. "Damn! I'd hoped listing this reef as the dive site would allay any suspicion." I frowned, as an unpleasant thought occurred to me. "Where did your equipment come from?"
"The dive shop," he replied, checking himself over. "We should check to see if this was sabotage of the simple kind. I can't imagine that too many people had access to our equipment."
No, I didn't think so, either. Damned few, in fact. Either my equipment was tampered with in the dive shop while Vaeamatoka was in the back, or someone had broken into my cabana and done the deed while I was out that afternoon. I picked up my regulator and looked it over, trying to determine if the sabotage was subtle enough that I could have missed it during my equipment check the previous afternoon. It was hard for me to spot at first, the sort of thing only someone with an intimate knowledge of regulators could have performed. There was no way I would have noticed it unless I'd actually disassembled the regulator. And there was no chance that this was an accident. I checked the rest of my gear, very carefully this time, but the rest of it seemed free of tampering. Of course, I'd thought that yesterday...
I looked up at the sound of a splash, and saw that Laughlin was back in the water, swimming around the boat. I looked back at my regulator, trying to see if there was any way to fix it. "Is something wrong with the boat?" I asked, while beginning to tinker with the regulator a bit. "Or do you just really like the water?"
"Let's just say that I have developed a sudden aversion to relying on technology. You might want to think along the same lines."
I arched an eyebrow. "Planning on swimming back to the shore, are you? Well, while you're in there, you might want to check the motor for any signs of tampering. And the hull. Just in case we're leaking gas or something."
I heard him moving around to the back of the boat. "What was that language you were speaking as we surfaced?" I asked curiously. "It's not one I recognize."
"Ancient Greek. I was spitting off a quick prayer to Poseidon. Can't hurt."
I felt my eyebrow lift again. "Do you actually believe in that sort of thing?"
"Right now, I believe in just about anything that might help me figure out why us exploring a cave is bad enough that someone would risk a botched assassination attempt. If that means giving thanks to an old ocean god for not killing me, then that is what I do."
I didn't see how that would help, but decided to not to pursue it. I set my regulator aside, having decided it was a lost cause. One of the critical parts had been filed down, and it would need to be replaced before the regulator was usable. I picked Laughlin's up, hoping his might be in better shape, but not expecting it. He had been hit harder than I had when his regulator had failed, so it seemed likely that it was in even worse shape.
Laughlin climbed back into the boat. "The boat seems in good working order. Of course, only a complete overhaul could tell for sure, but there's nothing obviously wrong. Shall we continue on?"
I thought about that for a moment. Was there any point? If both of the regulators were beyond repair, our original plan was out the window. Still that cave wasn't so deep that I couldn't make it without my scuba gear...if I really tried. If there wasn't air close to the entrance of the cave, though, the amount of exploring we could do would be limited. Still, I had no intention of just giving up and returning home, especially since someone had been willing to kill us to keep us from going to the cave in the first place. "Absolutely," I responded.
Laughlin started the engine and we began moving smoothly through the water. Looking at the map, I determined that we were only about 1.5 miles away from the island. Unfortunately, the nearest break in the reef was a mile or so off, so we'd actually be covering about four miles. Plenty of time to get there and explore before the storm hit. Still, I kept a careful eye on the gas gage, just in case.
"Hmm, speaking of botched assassination attempts, who knew that you were going diving today?" I asked. "Anyone but the guy you rented your equipment from? And the boat, of course."
"I didn't exactly make a secret of it. I imagine that at least a couple of people in the hotel staff knew, since I ordered a picnic lunch for a boating trip. And then the guy that I rented the boat from could probably figure it out as well. Too many suspects, and none of them make sense...yet."
I nodded. "Did any of them have any reason to suspect you'd be diving on the cave, specifically?"
"No, but I didn't hide that I wanted to dive around the island."
I did my best to hide my annoyance. "Hmm, I told the guy I rented my equipment from that we were going to dive the reef we stopped at. We probably should have coordinated our stories better." I looked up from his regulator. "How long can you hold your breath, by the way? Unless your saboteur was amazingly less competent than mine, I'm not going to be able to fix either of our regulators, which means we'll have to free dive. I'm pretty sure I can do it."
"I'm pretty sure that it won't be a problem for me, either. I'm a pretty strong swimmer."
"Good. I also think that perhaps one of us should hang back slightly when we do the dive. If something in the cave makes you pass out by looking at it, we don't want both of us losing consciousness down there."
"Works for me. You have my back?"
Why wasn't I surprised that he wanted to be the one in first? Still, I was more confident in my ability to get him out of trouble than the other way around. "All right. Don't move into the cave at first, until we're sure what we're dealing with. Just survey it from the outside. Hmm, I'll need some means of signaling you, if I see anyone approaching."
"Rope seems to be the obvious choice. That way you can signal me, or drag me to safety. Of course, if the big whatever grabs me, you'll need to cut the line pretty fast so you don't end up with me in hell."
"Metaphorically speaking, of course." I frowned slightly. "This is why I don't think you should enter the cave initially. I also think we should tie the rope to the boat as well. Not that something big couldn't drag the whole thing underwater, but it would be somewhat harder."
"Do we have enough rope, or can we just tie to the anchor as well?"
"Good question." I checked the length of rope we had on board, and decided it was sufficient for what we had in mind. "We're set," I informed Laughlin, who nodded and turned his attention back to steering the boat...leaving me with plenty of time to think about our little "accident." At least our would-be assassins had failed to derail our fishing expedition. I was more determined than ever now to check out that cave. Unfortunately, I couldn't help thinking that with the two of us strung out on the rope like that, we were going to look more like bait than fishermen.
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All text on this page is © 2000 by Kris Fazzari.
Last modified on September 11, 2000 by Kris Fazzari.